The synchronism of individual base stations in a wireless radiotelephone system is important to operate the system at its highest efficiency. In time division radio systems (TDMA) lack of synchronism may cause co-channel interference between adjacent base stations. If two stations use a common frequency (co-channel) in different time slots, lack of synchronization may lead to frequency interference between the two channels. This is a limitation on how often a particular frequency may be reused.
Lack of synchronism also requires resynchronism of the mobile radiotelephones at each handoff, which consumes valuable transmission time. This results in a considerable "mute time" in the operation of the radiotelephone. Personal communication Network (PCN) communication devices, for example, have frequent handoffs and hence mute time is a significant consideration. A lack of synchronization prohibits the application of slow frequency hopping techniques from being applied to a wireless communication network.
Despite its desirability, synchronism may require elaborate network schemes to ensure that all base stations are synchronized. It is desirable to achieve system synchronism with the simplest system arrangement that is reliable.